truk rambles

Corcovado was great. Everything I had heard about it being a truly wild and untamed place was true; there is an “edge of the world” feeling about the place, in everything from the pounding, raw Pacific to the thick, nearly impenetrable jungle it slides up to but never quite touches.

The jungle floor was littered, at one point,
with these huge, beautiful purple flowers.

First, a disclaimer: You do not need to stay at an expensive tent camp, such as the Corcovado Lodge Tent Camp we stayed in, to experience Corcovado. In fact, if we were going back (and, someday, I hope I will), we would not be staying in a tent camp but would be camping or staying in one of the cheaper spots in Carate, such as the beach hotel. We enjoyed our stay at the tent camp, but we didn’t realize until we got close to Corcovado and talked to some other travelers that the tent camps just make your stay a lot more comfortable, and they are not required if you want to stay near the Corcovado National Park for a few days.

We took the collectivo from Porto Jiminez to Carate early Tuesday morning. The road beyond Cabo Matopalos was even worse than the section we explored with the rental car, and being crammed on a wooden bench in the back of a pickup truck didn’t make things any easier. The trip took about 2.5 hours, and we were really happy that we were going to be leaving Carate by air once we got there.

Kath was a little concerned about the collectivo transportation
experience from Porto Jimenez to Corcovado

We booked three nights at the Corcovado Lodge Tent Camp, starting on Tuesday night, and we included a flight back to San Jose that would get us back in time for our flight on to the States. When we arrived in Carate, we followed the other collectivo passengers, most of whom were simply heading to the park for the day, down the beach toward the entrance to the park. (I knew that the tent camp was near the entrance to the park.) When we finally finished the 2 mile, very hot beach hike to the tent camp, we were told that they couldn’t find our reservation. However, the excellent manager of the camp, Juan Carlos, took our paperwork and arranged for us to have breakfast while he sorted everything out. Apparently, they get few people that arrive via any other method than by plane, and at one point, Juan Carlos asked, “How did you get here?” Most of the clientele of the tent camp would not carry all of their gear with them on the beach hike, as the tent camp has a horse and cart luggage and supply delivery system. Still, everyone that arrives to stay at the tent camp has to make that long, hot beach hike, even without their bags. The hike makes the moderately-cool shade from the tent camp’s palm trees feel even better once you arrive.

The tents at the Corcovado Lodge Tent Camp are big,
clean, and are as close to the ocean as you would ever want to sleep

Over the next few days, we went on a canopy tour (which is really an observation deck) and a half-day hike into Corcovado. We also explored all of the trails on the tent camp’s 20-hectare property, which is full of wildlife, including lots of monkeys that roam through, some sloths, and plenty of birds, including eagles, tucans, and many more. It rained during our canopy tour, which made visibility a problem, and most of the wildlife stayed well away from us, probably crouched somewhere much drier than 70 feet up a tree.

Kath got into the canopy tour, which hoisted
us up to a platform 120 feet off the ground

The Corcovado hike was wonderful, though. We only did a short hike, turning around at the first big river in the park (which was even higher than normal, thanks to the rain), but we saw lots of interesting animals, including an anteater, several types of monkeys, and coatis. Heading back to camp, things got a little spooky, when we started smelling puma urine and seeing blood droplets on the trail. For a while, I could swear we were being, well, watched, by something. However, we all got out of the park without any problems.

Pick your favorite monkey! truk, posing by
the Corcovado National Park sign, is missing
the necessary climbing tail

Our stay at the tent camp was made much more enjoyable by the excellent company sharing it with us. Joe, an avid walker that calls San Francisco home (for now), arrived shortly after we did, and Patrick and Laura, from San Diego, arrived shortly after that. We shared our multi-course, family-style meals and had many stimulating conversations. All of the guest were avid travelers, and we picked up a lot of tips about how to travel to Myanmar, the comparative mindset of former cannibals in New Guinea, and advantages of taking part in a Semester at Sea voyage. We really enjoyed getting to know everyone, and the staff of the tent camp also went out of the way to get to know us.

Our guide, Percy, tells us about the river on our
hike through Corcovado. That night, we finally
got to see a sunset at the tent camp.

We checked out of the tent camp on Friday morning and started the long beach hike back the Carate airstrip, this time without our bags, where were transferred ahead of us using the horse and cart. Still, the beach hike was brutal. We were both completely drenched in sweat and wiped when we finally arrived. The small charter flight back to San Jose provided for beautiful scenery all the way back, and we even got back into Memphis a little early.

truk and Kath stand beside the “air taxi” waiting to wisk
them back to San Jose, which took us over many of the
places visited, including this beach in Corcovado

All in all, we had a wonderful time in Costa Rica. I’ll post more details about some of our impressions soon.

More photos of our stay at Corcovado can be seen here

This will likely be our last post for a few days, as we are hoping to board a collectivo (local taxi – well, pickup truck with some seats in the back and a tarp over the top) that will take us to the entrance of the Corcovado National Park. If you are wondering where that is, find Costa Rica on a map, then find the small, most southern, most western peninsula, near the border with Panama. That’s the Osa Peninsula, and the Corcovado National Park takes up about half of it.

Corcovado promises to be a pretty rustic place to stay, with electricity supplied by generators for a few hours a day and not much to do other than check out the copious flora and fauna, lay on the beach, and go hiking through the jungle. We’ve got some reservations at a tent camp near the entrance of the park, but I’ve learned that you can just about expect anything in this part of the world.

Yesterday, we rented a little 4×4 car and drove around the southern part of the peninsula, including heading out to a big surf break near Cabo Matapolas, which at the end of the Golfo Dolce, where it opens into the Pacific Ocean. A few hardened surfer types were enjoying the decent waves as the tide was coming in, dodging rocks and looking a little smug that they had found such a sweet, depopulated place to ride.

This morning, we found another wonderful beach, even closer to Porto Jiminez, one with two breaks when the tide is out, each with a clear water and no rocks. You could actually surf the outer break to the inner break and then surf that to the beach. Alas, though, no rented board with us.

The collectivo leaves at 6 AM tomorrow, so we will have to get up early. We will probably chill the rest of the afternoon and enjoy our last bit of air conditioning for a few days – it has been in the upper 80s with 70% humidity the past few days, when it hasn’t been raining.

The next post will hopefully be in Memphis on Saturday. I just hope that Stephen got my email about needing an ride from the airport on Friday night…

Check out more photos of Porto Jimenez here

Kath and I left lovely Uvita yesterday (Saturday) morning via taxi, amazingly making the Porto Jiminez bus just perfectly in Palmer Norte. That sort of thing rarely happens to us, where we make a bus just right when it is about to leave. Of course, we made the bus just in time, which didn’t leave any time to go to the bank, which is where we really needed to go, since we were low on cash. And it turned out that Porto Jiminez only has one bank, a Banco National, which doesn’t work with our ATM card. However, amazingly, the bank was open, which means that we could get money off of our credit card. So, I went inside and tried to get some money there, and they said, “No, we are only open for the telethon.”

The telethon? “What telethon?”

Some national telethon was happening, and people that pledged money could pay their pledges at the National Bank. So, even though the bank was open, and they had money, and they took credit cards, they wouldn’t do anything for me. So, Kath and I have been scraping by on our last collones and dollars, waiting for the bank to open tomorrow (Monday). It is pretty amazing: In the largest town in the region, with over 7,000 people in the town and many thousands more on the peninsula, there is only 1 ATM. And one unhelpful bank.

We spent our last day in Uvita exploring the national park and getting really sunburned walking all of the way out the end of the peninsula. You have to be careful there, because if the tide comes in, you have little time to hike the half-mile back to the mainland over the low sand spit.

We enjoyed a pizza in the middle of the jungle, in this strange little restaurant on the edge of civilization, where they have discovered the take-out cooked chicken. (Take-out is called “servico expresso” here, which does not describe the speed of the wait staff.)

We also had a wonderful stay at the Tucan Hotel and got to know the new owner, Tre, who is amazingly from Memphis. We got off of a dusty bus in the middle of the night and hiked up the road to his hotel, only to be greeted by a guy in a “Memphis Tigers” t-shirt. The Tucan is really an oasis for the entire area, and we think that Tre will be very successful with his new venture. Air-con, lots of hammocks, free Internet, and $1 beers make staying at the Tucan an easy choice.

Porto Jiminez has been pretty sleepy since we arrived, as it’s the weekend. We did watch a soccer game yesterday, though, were a big fight broke out, which is really unusual in Costa Rica (ticos are big pacifists and will usually do anything to avoid a confrontation). The fight ended up cancelling the game, and the cops were called. After the second big blow-up between these two guys, one guy went back to where his team’s fans were sitting and got a machete (where are really common all around Costa Rica) and ran at the other guy, in full view of the police. Thankfully, a bunch of machete guy’s friends grabbed him and got the machete away from him. Also, amazingly, no one was arrested, and the scene just gradually broke up and everyone drifted away. For a minute, there, I was sure we were going to witness a murder, though.

We will probably just hang around in Porto Jiminez until Tuesday morning, when we are due to get a collectivo to take us to Carate and the tent camps, where we will stay through Friday, when we fly back to the states. All is well, as long as the credit card keeps working… 🙂

More photos of Porto Jimenez can be seen here

Kath and I have stumbled into another backwater wonderland in Uvita, a small, country near-beach community in the southern Pacific region of Costa Rica. Life is easy at the Tucan Hotel, the meals are cheap and yummy at the nearest soda (local restaurant), the beautiful waterfalls are only a 45-minute walk away, and the beach ends in a long spit that contains some local reefs. What more do you need?

Well, for one thing, we are still in need of a good way out of this place, something that will affordably and relatively quickly convey us from Uvita to Porto Jimenez by Monday, so that we can take a collectivo taxi to Carate and the Corcovado Lodge Tent Camp, where we have reservations through the end of the week.

It has struck us more than once that, just possibly, Uvita is so nice and unspoiled simply because it is so hard to get here and get away, at least without renting a car. Even though it is totally uneconomical, we tried to get rent a car for 24-hours, a one-way rental, so that we could get to the local bus hub and also see a local indigenous area. It simply wasn’t possible. Now, we are facing a 5 AM bus at some point in the next few days, which really isn’t desireable.

But for now, things are great. We are enjoying the sun and sand and $1 beers.

More pics of Uvita are available here

We are now in Quepos, after catching a water taxi from Montezuma to Jaco this morning and then finding a bus to bring us down the coast. We are planning to catch a bus this evening to take us down to Uvita, which get us close to our goal of being on the Osa Peninsula by Monday.

Montezuma was, in one word, amazing. I’ve been few places closer to paradise. Clear running waterfalls that slip into a crashing sea over tan sand. Cool sea breezes and plenty of shade on the beach to defeat the sun, which we hadn’t seen in Costa Rica until we arrived in Montezuma.

We didn’t take any tours there, just chilled. Like New Zealand last year, I believe that our photos of the area won’t approach its true beauty. No wonder so many folks spend longer than expect in Montezuma.

Check out more photos of Montezuma here

The past few days have been eventful. Yesterday, we attempted to walk to a waterfall outside of La Fortuna, only be completely soaked by several downpours while we walked the 7 KM, uphill (occasionally against a 10% grade), only to discover that the waterfall was really only so-so. And we paid $14 to just get into the waterfall, only to take a couple of pictures and leave. It wasn’t worth the walk down to the pool to swim and then the steep walk back up. I think New Zealand last year really spoiled us concerning waterfalls. Anyway, despite the challenges of the walk, the scenery was beautiful and almost made the whole thing worth it. Almost.

Kath and truk at Lake Arenal

In the afternoon, after changing out of our wet clothes, we took the jeep-boat-jeep, well, actually, van-boat-van connection to go from La Fortuna to Santa Elena, just beside Monteverde. The trip was uneventful but very beautiful, including a spectacular sunset as we neared Santa Elena, the first one we had seen since leaving Memphis. Yes, it has been that cloudy. And wet.

Sunset when nearing Monteverde

Today started with a cup of extremely good coffee at the Treetop Cafe, which is a restaurant on the main street in Santa Elena built around a massive tropical tree, which covers the entire structure. It really feels like you are a kid in a tree house. I’ve been in several places like this, especially in Australia, but I’ve never seen it done this well before.

Next, we headed off to a Don Juan Coffee Plantation tour. Kath and I usually hit wineries when we are traveling, but there really isn’t anything like that here. What is here, however, and all over the place, are coffee plants. Our guide, Marcos, stepped us through the entire process, from how they germinate the plants, nurse them, fertilize them, and pick them. Then, we saw the coffee beans removed and left to dry, natural-style, in the sun, and then moved all of the way to the roasting process. We had no idea how involved the entire process is, nor did we understand that is traditionally done on a such a small scale, including only 1 or 2 hectares of coffee plants for one coffee company. It left us with the impression that much of the best coffee never leaves the area, much less the country.

Riding the oxen cart on the coffee tour

This afternoon, we went walking in what is called a “hanging bridges” tour, which takes place in a cloud forest outside of town. While suspension bridges are involved, this is really just a hike, albeit a very pretty one, through an area that stays permanently wet, at least for 200 days a year. It rained the entire time we were on the hike, so most of the animals we would normally have been able to see showed more sense than we did and stayed hidden away and at least partially dry. The walk was enjoyable, but after a while, the lack of sunshine just starts playing tricks on your mind. Our camera really had trouble with the lighting. I think it may have been one of the most difficult places to take a clear photo that I’ve ever seen. The foggy conditions played havok on the autofocus.

Tomorrow, we are going to take a taxi to a different cloud forest and walk our way back to Santa Elena, visiting various places along the way. While it should be a good time, we are both looking forward to heading to Montezuma and the sunny coast and away from the rain.

View more of our photos of Monteverde

Even though it is currently at the end of the rainy season in Costa Rica, it has been pouring almost relentlessly since we got to Fortuna. The clouds around the volcano have been so heavy that it has been difficult to figure out where the volcano actually is, much less check out the mouth and see any lava or steam. Regardless, we’ve been having a great time.

Katherine waiting for the tour to get going again

Yesterday was a big day, starting with a boat tour down the Rio Frio from Canas Negro and ending up at border with Nicaragua. We saw dozens of varieties of birds, including Amazonian kingfishers, wood storks, and several types of white herons. There were lotsof other creatures without wings about, too, including many turtles, a few Jesus lizards, and little crocs. Monkeys where in several of the trees, including an albino howler monkey, apparently pretty rare. We also saw some gigantic iguanas hanging out in some trees below a bridge, with the males bright orange as they get ready for the mating season. (They return to their standard green-brown afterward.) It rained most of the trip, but the sky let up on us when it mattered most, like when we disembarked for a picnic lunch.

Some big, male iguanas hanging out

In the afternoon, we hiked up the side of Volcan Arenal to the site of the 1992 eruption, which destroyed a side of the volcano and left a massive lava rock (well, boulder) field in its wake. This was the first place where I heard avalanche refering to something other than snow. The 1968 eruption destroyed a town nearby, and the government used the lava rocks from that eruption to build a dam to create Lake Arenal, which provides the entire region (including parts of Panama and Nicaragua) with electricity. Talk about making lemonade out of lemons!

truk and kath at Lake Arenal

We ended the day at a hot springs resort called Baldi, where the water is heated by the volcano, which apparently could blow again at any time. (The last eruption was in 2003.) While we didn’t get to see the volcano’s top, we definitely heard it rumble while we were at the bath. It sounded like very ominous thunder. Baldi was great, with definitely the hottest water that we’ve ever seen at a hot springs resort. Some of the baths were close to 160 degrees…

Baldi has hotter water than that around this cayman

Today, we are heading to Monteverde, which is across Lake Arenal and on the other side of the volcano. To get there, we have to take a jeep, then a boat across the lake, and then another jeep into town. We were going to take horses from the lake into Santa Elana (near Monteverde), but we are going to save our horseback riding for the cloud forests in the area. Also, with all of the rain lately, the route would have been treacherous.

More photos of this portion of the Costa Rica trip can be seen here

Thanks to the wonderful accommodation at my job, plus the Lamberts, who are watching our dogs, and John for taking us to the airport (way too) early in the morning, Katherine and I find ourselves in Costa Rica, struggling with our Spanish and trying to stay dry at the end of the rainy season.

Katherine after enjoying her first gallo pinto,
the “Tipical Food” in Costa Rica

We flew into San Jose yesterday and immediately remembered why we haven’t spent much time in big Latin American cities. Right after leaving the airport, we were put on the wrong bus and, after getting off the right bus, we were almost robbed. (Someone got our backpack pouch open, but we got away from them before they could take anything.) Last night was not restful, as we picked a hotel near the bus we would be taking today, but that also meant it was a main drag. Oh, and across the street from a really loud nightclub.

Today (Monday) has been much better. We made our morning bus for La Fortuna, which is about 6km from Volcan Arenal, a big volcano that promises to spit lava at us when we assault its trails, sometime tomorrow. We are also planning to check out the local hot springs and maybe take in a river nature cruise.

The park in the center of La Fortuna

Right now, we are just taking it easy, trying to get into the “tico” (what Costa Ricans call themselves) way of life, which really appears pretty laid back. There is a lot of lounging around going on here, which is really what a vacation is all about anyway, isn’t it?